Better treatment found for deadly infection

CHENNAI: A multi-institute team of researchers from India identified a better drug treatment for ‘Severe Scrub Typhus,’ a life-threatening bacterial infection.

This infection caused by Orientia tsutsugamushi primarily affects rodents, but is transmitted to humans by the larvae of trombiculid mites. The researchers found that a combination antibiotic treatment (azithromycin and doxycycline) is more effective for treating it than monotherapies of either drug.

Scrub typhus is a major public health threat in India and other South Asian countries, where an estimated one million people get infected and 1.5 lakh die every year, and a billion people are at risk of infection.

Prof George M Varghese, an infectious diseases physician and researcher from Christian Medical College, Vellore, and the INTREST trial investigators conducted a multi-centric, randomised controlled trial funded by the DBT/Wellcome India Alliance to identify the best treatment option.

This new study, the largest ever randomised controlled trial on treatment of severe scrub typhus, was published recently in The New England Journal of Medicine. An IIT-Madras release said it demonstrated that treatment with intravenous doxycycline and azithromycin is more effective than using either drug on its own.

The collaborating institutions included JIPMER, Puducherry; CMC, Vellore; PGIMER, Chandigarh; IGMC, Shimla; Pandit Bhagwat Dayal Sharma Post Graduate Institute of Medical Sciences, Rohtak; SVIMS Tirupati; and KMC Manipal.